


boy like him/boy like you

by apolliades



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Boys In Love, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Love Confessions, Lowercase, M/M, POV Second Person, Short & Sweet, this is self indulgent emo-y garbage but ... shhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolliades/pseuds/apolliades
Summary: you don’t get it, can’t understand why this boy with his leather jacket and hot-wired cars and drop-out friends would possibly care about a boy like you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is not a fandom i ever thought i'd find myself writing for. but hey fuck it they're so in love

he’s a fallen angel with a cigarette-smoke halo and when he stands too close you can smell the off-brand booze on his hot breath. it isn’t sweet, but you’ve started to love it, just like you’ve started to love the scabs on his knuckles, his crooked front teeth when he smiles, the bruise under his left eye that always comes back. 

 

_he’s a scoundrel, that boy. he’s a menace._

 

and you’ve started to love the way he looks at you, because he looks at you all the time, he looks at you when no one else does, like no one else does. he looks at you like he’s seeing you, and he comes to sit by you, when you’re alone, makes you jump by appearing all of a sudden and leaning over your shoulder and asking what you’re reading. asking like he actually cares. you don’t get it, can’t understand why this boy with his leather jacket and hot-wired cars and drop-out friends would possibly care about a boy like you. 

 

_he’s trouble. he’s a dog._

 

but he does, and he makes sure to make that devastatingly obvious. he does, and even when you shy away and blush and freeze up and forget how to speak around him, he keeps seeking you out, and you keep going home smelling just a little bit like cigarette smoke, and you don’t want to scrub it off in the shower. 

 

it’s late and it’s cold the night you find him in the park, the one behind the petrol station, the one nobody ever goes to anymore because everything’s rusted or graffitied or half melted by half-drunk teenagers with bic lighters. the moon’s up, the only thing you have to see by. it’s full, bright white, unblotted by clouds, and it’s always worse somehow when it’s full, isn’t it? he’s flat out on his back, and his eyes are the colour of the light the moon casts. he’s blowing slow smoke breaths and there’s blood smeared below his nose, just like there’s blood smeared inside your wrists. yours is hidden under your cuffs; his is screaming red for anyone to see. 

 

as soon as you see him you turn around to go. this moment seems private, even if he is beautiful in the soft grey, even if all you really want to do is lie down beside him and share it. but your shoes squeak on the rubber, and he sits up fast, looks at you. all sharp at first, and wary, and you start to stutter that you’re sorry but you don’t manage to get the words out before he starts smiling. crooked teeth, eye wrinkling smiling. happy to see you even now. your heart leaps into your throat and you choke on it. 

 

he says your name. it sounds different, in his voice, than in anyone else’s. he says your name, but you can’t move, you’re stuck there and it’s echoing in your skull, crystal clear, the only sound in the whole of the night, hanging in the air between you. you’re stuck staring at him. you’re always fucking staring at him, you don’t know why he hasn’t told you to stop. it doesn’t cross your mind that it’s because he’s been fucking staring at you, too. 

 

his kiss when it happens doesn’t feel real. you stand there open eyed and open mouthed for the first three seconds, tasting his blood and his cigarettes and his cheap whisky. when he pulls away he laughs at the look on your face; you’re moonstruck. even when he asks if you’re alright, you can’t speak — but what you can do is make fists in the front of his stupid battered jacket and pull him back to you, put your mouth to better use than stumbling over words. 

 

he kisses you every day after that. he kisses you all the time, like he can’t get enough. he appears behind you in the corridor and kisses the back of your neck and makes you shiver; he corners you at the lockers when no one’s around and kisses you just long enough that when he darts away again, laughing jubilant, your cheeks are cherry red; he sits slumped beside you when you’re reading and distracts you with his mouth against your shoulder; he scrambles through your bedroom window in the middle of the night, when the moon’s too bright for you to sleep, wraps himself around you and kisses your eyes closed. he even kisses the scars, the ones you’ve made on your wrists, on your ribs, the ugly one on your cheek. doesn’t ask. doesn’t need to. 

when you tell him you love him it’s not quite how you expected it to be. you’d kind of thought you should make it special, do it properly, go somewhere nice together. 

 

instead you blurt it. one morning when he’s pulling the laces tight on his boots, getting ready to sneak back out of the window before anyone wakes up. you’re looking at him, lit up by the sunrise, his skin turned pink and gold, and swells up in you all at once and you can’t keep your mouth shut. _i love you,_ you say, so fast it startles even yourself. _i love you._  

 

his grin is brighter than the sun has ever been. 

 

_i know,_ he tells you. _i know._

 

because of course he does. because you’ve been telling him without words every day since you met. because he’s been telling you too. he gets up, and kisses you goodbye for a long long time.

of course. of course. of course.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [you're the only reason (i'm still alive and breathing)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8527426) by [ArabAquarius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArabAquarius/pseuds/ArabAquarius)




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